The World Bank’s assessment from the Sudan Welfare Monitoring Survey, published on 9 October 2026, examines how conflict affected livelihoods and access to food. It brings together four household-survey rounds conducted from October 2024 through July 2025, with between 1,340 and 4,200 households interviewed per round, satellite analysis and community surveys. The approach tracks both conditions reported by households and spatial changes in economic activity and agricultural areas.

The report says the population share with a poor Food Consumption Score rose from 14 per cent in April 2025 to 27 per cent in July 2025. The score is a composite indicator that combines dietary diversity, how often households consume food and the relative nutritional value of food groups. In the report’s classification, a score of 28 or below is “poor,” while a score above 28 and up to 42 is “borderline.” More than half of the population fell into the poor or borderline categories in the July round; these categories represent different levels of risk and should not be combined without explanation.

Satellite data indicate that night-time light intensity fell by 26 per cent during the first six months of the conflict. The World Bank uses light as a proxy for economic activity and infrastructure. It is not a direct measure of gross domestic product or output: electricity access, damage to infrastructure, population movements and the relocation of activity can all change the satellite signal. The percentage therefore cannot, on its own, quantify the size of an economic contraction.

For agriculture, the report says vegetation indicators in Sennar and Gedaref were about 25 per cent below their 2018–2022 average by 2024. It describes similar declines in other agricultural areas and says the affected states account for a substantial share of the country’s cultivated area. Vegetation indices are satellite proxies for crop performance, not tonnage harvested or a direct yield survey. Community surveys conducted in 2025 add a different type of evidence: 70 per cent of surveyed communities reported reduced access to agricultural inputs, and 52 per cent reported damage to irrigation or storage infrastructure.

Household coping strategies also point to pressure on future livelihoods. Between October 2024 and July 2025, the share of surveyed households reporting that a child under 15 had worked increased from 8 to 13 per cent. The report also describes families reducing meals and selling productive assets, which can weaken future income and recovery prospects. These measures capture pressures that go beyond immediate food consumption and may affect human capital and the ability to resume production.

The report’s indicators use different periods and denominators: poor food consumption comes from household surveys, infrastructure and vegetation signals from satellites, and input access from community responses. They should not be collapsed into a single “production loss” rate. Taken together, the findings show that by mid-2025 food consumption, farm inputs and proxies for economic activity were all under pressure. Each result needs to be read with its own method, reference period and limits.